Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an
American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political
Katherine Anne Porter
activist.[1] Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in
America that year, but her short stories received much more critical
acclaim. She is known for her penetrating insight; her work deals with
dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil. In
1990, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark number 2905 was placed in
Brown County, Texas, to honor the life and career of Porter.[2]

Contents
1 Biography
2 Awards and honors
3 Works
3.1 Short story collections Porter in 1930
3.2 Novels
3.3 Nonfiction Born Callie Russell Porter
3.4 Posthumous publications May 15, 1890
3.5 Other publications Indian Creek, Texas, U.S.
4 References
Died September 18, 1980
4.1 Notes
4.2 Citations (aged 90)
4.3 Bibliography Silver Spring, Maryland,
5 External links U.S.
Occupation Journalist, Essayist,
Writer, Novelist
Biography Years active 1920–1977
Spouse(s) John Henry Koontz
Katherine Anne Porter was born Callie Russel Porter to Harrison Boone
Porter and Mary Alice (Jones) Porter. Her family tree can be traced (1906-1915) (divorced)
back to American frontiersman Daniel Boone and the writer O. Henry Ernest Stock (1926-1927)
(whose real name was William Sydney Porter), her father's second (divorced)
cousin.[3] Eugene Pressly (1930-
1938) (divorced)
In 1892, when Porter was two years old, her mother died two months Albert Russel Erskine, Jr.
after giving birth to her last child. Porter's father took his four surviving (1938-1942) (divorced)
children (an older brother had died in infancy) to live with his mother,
Catherine Ann Porter, in Kyle, Texas. The depth of her grandmother's
influence can be inferred from Porter's later adoption of her name. Her
grandmother died while taking eleven-year-old Callie to visit relatives
in Marfa, Texas.

After her grandmother's death, the family lived in several towns in

Texas and Louisiana, staying with relatives or living in rented rooms.
She was enrolled in free schools wherever the family was living, and
for a year in 1904 she attended the Thomas School, a private Methodist Porter's childhood home in Kylewas
school in San Antonio, Texas. This was her only formal education added to the National Register of
beyond grammar school. Historic Places in 2004.
In 1906, at age sixteen, Porter left home and married John Henry Koontz in Lufkin, Texas. She subsequently
converted to his religion, Roman Catholicism.[4] Koontz, the son of a wealthy Texas ranching family, was
physically abusive; once while drunk, he threw her down the stairs, breaking her ankle. They divorced
officially in 1915.[3]

In 1914 she escaped to Chicago, where she worked briefly as an extra in movies. She then returned to Texas
and worked the small-town entertainment circuit as an actress and singer. In 1915, she asked that her name be
changed to Katherine Anne Porter as part of her divorce decree.

Also in 1915, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent the following two years in sanatoria, where she
decided to become a writer. It was discovered during that time, however, that she had bronchitis, not TB. In
1917, she began writing for the Fort Worth Critic, critiquing dramas and writing society gossip. In 1918, she
wrote for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. In the same year, Katherine almost died in Denver
during the 1918 flu pandemic. When she was discharged from the hospital months later, she was frail and
completely bald. When her hair finally grew back, it was white and remained that color for the rest of her
life.[3] Her experience was reflected in her trilogy of short novels, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939), for which she
received the first annual gold medal for literature in 1940 from the Society of Libraries of New York
University.[5]

In 1919, Porter moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and made her living ghost writing, writing
children's stories and doing publicity work for a motion picture company. The year in New York City had a
politically radicalizing effect on her; and in 1920, she went to work for a magazine publisher in Mexico, where
she became acquainted with members of the Mexican leftist movement, including Diego Rivera. Eventually,
however, Porter became disillusioned with the revolutionary movement and its leaders. In the 1920s she also
became intensely critical of religion and remained so until the last decade of her life, when she again embraced
the Roman Catholic Church.[6]

Between 1920 and 1930, Porter traveled back and forth between Mexico and New York City and began
publishing short stories and essays. Her first published story was "Maria Concepcion" in The Century
Magazine. (In his 1960s novel Providence Island, Calder Willingham had the character Jim fantasize a perfect
lover and he called her Maria Concepcion Diaz.)[3] In 1930, she published her first short-story collection,
Flowering Judas and Other Stories. An expanded edition of this collection was published in 1935 and received
such critical acclaim that it alone virtually assured her place in American literature.

In 1926, Porter married Ernest Stock and lived briefly in Connecticut before divorcing him in 1927. Some
biographers suggest that Porter suffered several miscarriages, at least one stillbirth between 1910 and 1926, and
an abortion; and after contracting gonorrhea from Stock, that she had a hysterectomy in 1927, ending her hopes
of ever having a child. Yet Porter's letters to her lovers suggest that she still intimated her menstruation after
this alleged hysterectomy. As she once confided to a friend, "I have lost children in all the ways one can."[7]

During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Porter enjoyed a prominent reputation as one of America's most
distinguished writers, but her limited output and equally-limited sales had her living on grants and advances for
most of the era.

During the 1930s, Porter spent several years in Europe during which she continued to publish short stories. In
1930, she married Eugene Pressly, a writer. In 1938, upon returning from Europe, she divorced Pressly and
married Albert Russel Erskine, Jr., a graduate student. He reportedly divorced her in 1942 after discovering her
real age and that she was 20 years his senior. [N 1]

Porter became an elected member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943, and was a writer-in-
residence at several colleges and universities, including the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan,
and the University of Virginia.[8]

Between 1948 and 1958, Porter taught at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Washington and Lee
University, and the University of Texas, where her unconventional manner of teaching made her popular with
students.
Three of Porter's stories were adapted into radio dramas on the program NBC University Theatre. "Noon Wine"
was made into an hour drama in early 1948 and two years later "Flowering Judas" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider"
each were produced in half-hour dramas on an episode of the hour-long program. Porter herself made two
appearances on the radio series giving critical commentary on works by Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf. In
the 1950s and '60s she occasionally appeared on television in programs discussing literature.

Porter published her only novel, Ship of Fools in 1962, based on her reminiscences of a 1931 ocean cruise she
had taken from Vera Cruz, Mexico, to Germany. The novel's success finally gave her financial security (she
reportedly sold the film rights for Ship of Fools for $500,000). Producer David O. Selznick was after the film
rights; but United Artists who owned the property, demanded $400,000. The novel was adapted for film by
Abby Mann; producer and director Stanley Kramer featured Vivien Leigh in her final film performance.[N 2]

Despite Porter's claim that after the publication of Ship of Fools she would not win any more prizes in America,
in 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize[10] and the U.S. National Book Award[11] for The Collected Stories
of Katherine Anne Porter. That year she was also appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1977, Porter published The Never-Ending Wrong, an account of the notorious trial and execution of Sacco
and Vanzetti, which she had protested 50 years earlier.

Porter died in Silver Spring, Maryland, on September 18, 1980, at the age of 90, and her ashes were buried next
to her mother at Indian Creek Cemetery in Texas.

Awards and honors

1966 – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Collected Stories (1965)[10]
1966 – National Book Award for The Collected Stories (1965)[11]
1967 – Gold Medal Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Three nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature
2006 – Porter was featured on a United States postage stamp issued May 15, 2006. She was the 22nd
person featured in the Literary Arts commemorative stamp series.[12][13]

Works
Short story collections
Flowering Judas, bk(Harcourt, Brace: 1930). Includes eight of Porter's earliest short stories.
Flowering Judas and Other Stories, (Harcourt, Brace: 1935). Includes the contents of the earlier edition
as well as four additional stories.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider (Harcourt, Brace: 1939). Includes the three stories Porter referred to as short
novels: "Old Mortality," "Noon Wine" (American radio, 1948; American TV, 1966; American TV, 1985),
and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" (American radio, 1950; British TV, 1964).
The Leaning Tower and Other Stories, (Harcourt, Brace: 1944). Includes nine of Porter's short stories.
The Old Order: Stories of the South, (Harcourt, Brace: 1955). Includes ten of Porter's previously
published short stories, all of which take place in the American South.
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, (Harcourt, Brace: 1964). Includes all twenty-six of
Porter's previously published short stories, including the three she preferred to call short novels.

Novels

Ship of Fools, (Little, Brown, & Co.:1962). (American film, 1965).

Nonfiction
 The Days Before, (Harcourt, Brace: 1952). Includes many of Porter's book reviews, critical essays,
memoirs, etc.
The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter, (Delacorte: 1970).

Posthumous publications
Letters of Katherine Anne Porter, (Atlantic Monthly Press: 1990), edited by Isabel Bayley. Includes
portions of over 250 letters Porter wrote to over sixty correspondents between 1930 and 1966.
"This Strange, Old World" and Other Book Reviews Written by Katherine Anne Porter, (University of
Georgia Press, 1991), edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. Includes almost 50 of the book reviews Porter
published in various periodicals during her lifetime.
Uncollected Early Prose of Katherine Anne Porter (University of Texas Press: 1993), edited by Ruth M.
Alvarez and Thomas F. Walsh. Includes twenty-nine of Porter's prose works of fiction and nonfiction, not
included in earlier published editions.
Katherine Anne Porter's Poetry (University of South Carolina Press: 1996), edited by Darlene Harbour
Unrue. Includes all thirty-two of the poems Porter published in periodicals during her lifetime.
Porter: Collected Stories and Other Writings (Library of America: 2008). Includes the full text of "The
Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter" (Harcourt, Brace 1964) as well as many of the pieces that
were included in her two previous collections of nonfiction.
Selected Letters of Katherine Anne Porter: Chronicles of a Modern Woman (University Press of
Mississippi: 2012), edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. Includes over 130 complete letters Porter wrote to
over seventy correspondents between 1916 and 1979.

Other publications

My Chinese Marriage by Mae Franking, ghostwritten by Porter (Duffield & Co: 1921).
Outline of Mexican Popular Arts and Crafts, (Young & McCallister: 1922).
Katherine Anne Porter's French Song Book (Harrison of Paris: 1933). Included seventeen French songs
and Porter's English translations.
A Christmas Story, (Delacorte: 1967). Porter's story previously published about her niece, Mary Alice
Hillendahl.
The Never-Ending Wrong (Little, Brown, & Co.: 1977). Porter's reflections upon the 1927 executions of
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

References
Notes
1. Brewster Ghiselin wrote a poem called "The Ring" that is an allusion to the marriage-suicide.
2. The ensemble cast of Ship of Fools (1965) included Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar
Werner, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, José Greco and Heinz Rühmann.[9]

Citations

1. "Obituary: Katherine Anne Porter." Variety, September 24, 1980.

2. "THC-Katherine Anne Porter". (http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/viewform.asp?atlas_num=5049002905&site_n
ame=Porter,+Katherine+Anne&class=5000) Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (Texas Historical
Commission). Retrieved: February 22, 2011.
3. Johnston, Laurie. "Katherine Anne Porter Dies at 90; Won a Pulitzer for Short Stories". (https://select.nyt
imes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70916FB395D11728DDDA00994D1405B8084F1D3) The New York
Times, September 19, 1980. Site subscription required.
4. Unrue 2005, p. 45.
5. Lavers, Norman. “Katherine Anne Porter.” Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition (2010): 1.
Biography Reference Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.
6. Unrue 2005, pp.xv-xx (contains a Katherine Anne Porter chronology).
7. Unrue 2005, pp. 14, 86.
 8. Hathcock, Barrett. “Katherine Anne Porter.” Katherine Anne Porter (2005): 1. Biography Reference
Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.
9. Steinberg, Jay. "Articles: Ship of Fools." (http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/27532/Ship-of-Fools/articles.h
tml) Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved: October 11, 2013.
10. "Fiction." (http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction) The Pulitzer Prizes: Past winners & finalists by
category. Retrieved: March 30, 2012.
11. "National Book Awards, 1966." (http://www.nationalbook.org/nba1966.html) National Book Foundation.
Retrieved: March 30, 2012.
(With acceptance speech by Porter and essays by Mary Gaitskill and H.L. Hix from the Awards 60-year
anniversary blog.)
12. "Katherine Anne Porter Stamp Sails Into Post Offices". (http://www.usps.com/communications/news/sta
mps/2006/sr06_023.htm) United States Postal Service, May 15, 2006. Retrieved: July 10, 2008.
13. Gicker, William J.. ed. "Katherine Anne Porter 39¢." USA Philatelic, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2006, p. 13.

Bibliography
Givner, Joan. Katherine Anne Porter: A Life. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991, First
edition 1982. ISBN 978-0-8203-1340-5.
Hardwick, Elisabeth. "What she was and what she felt like." The New York Times, November 7, 1982.
Retrieved: November 18, 2011.
Nance, William L. Katherine Anne Porter and the Art of Rejection. Chapel Hill, North Carolina:
University of North Carolina Press, 1963. OCLC 184906
Tanner, James Thomas Fontenot, PhD. The Texas Legacy of Katherine Anne Porter (Texas Writers Series
(Book 3). Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0-929398-22-8.
Unrue, Darlene Harbour. Katherine Anne Porter Remembered. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of
Alabama Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8173-1667-9.

External links
Papers of Katherine Anne Porter housed at Hornbake Library, University of Maryland Libraries
Works by or about Katherine Anne Porter in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Barbara Thompson Davis (Winter–Spring 1963). "Katherine Anne Porter, The Art of Fiction No. 29".
The Paris Review.
Petri Liukkonen. "Katherine Anne Porter". Books and Writers
Brief biography at Perspectives in American Literature
Katherine Anne Porter at American Masters (PBS)
Photos of the first edition of Porter's Pulitzer Prize winning book
Official site of Porter's childhood home in Kyle, TX
Stuart Wright Collection: Katherine Anne Porter Papers (#1169-009), East Carolina Manuscript
Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University
Works by or about Katherine Anne Porter at Internet Archive

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